Good to see. However, we still await next steps from the BOD. We know the asset has potential - based on the maiden JORC - but there is a long way to go before its real potential is released in the form of increased value to shareholders. The immediate question involves funding for the scoping study. If the asset is as good as the JORC suggests then there should not be a problem in funding the next steps, and the directors should participate in that funding. If they participate then I would expect the market to respond Accordingly! Make no mistake this is a long term project but if FCR pull it off then this will be one of those rare junior Miners that have exploited the asset that they own into a significant world class play. Im strapped in for the ride which could take 2-4 years before we are really sure where its going IMO.

I reckon 2018 will be the year that finally forces companies to up their game when it comes to raising cash. The asset a company holds really needs to be something that grabs the attention of the market. No more easy placings will be a good thing for AIM. Survival of the fittest.

Let's now hope that FCR can prove to current shareholders, and potential new shareholders that the Toral asset has the potential that it appears at first sight to have.

For companies with an asset that has not got a JORC 2012 or NI 43-101 - just a good hunch that there might be some mineralisation in the ground, I think things will get even more tougher as they burn cash through with no real independent validation of the resource.

Any company that does not have directors with skin in the game will find it tough to sell their message. Let's see if the FCR BOD put skin in the game in the form of investment. They currently take no salary which shows commitment but the market needs more IMO.

The Toral asset has been around for a long time, and changed hands many times. That's not uncommon in the mining industry, in fact from what I can see it tends to be the norm. Assets change hands for all sorts of reasons. The disadvantage is that naysayers will say, often repeatedly, that it's proof that "no one wants the asset". To that I would say most mines have had several previous owners - go figure.

However, previous ownership also comes with an advantage - the last company taking on the asset usually has sight of the work done and recorded to date.

FCR are in the position of owning an asset which has had much previous work done on it. There is a large database that can be interpreted and reinterpreted in old and new ways. We have already seen the raw tonnage move from 8m tonnes to 16m tonnes with higher potential metal in the ground. However this is on the basis of inferred resources.

The above is how I see it. You might see it differently. However it does mean to go from inferred to indicated and measured requires much more sampling - more work - drilling - more money - which is the norm. If you are surprised by a Junior mining company requiring more money as It progresses the phases then maybe it's a wake up call.

Although the Toral Canadian NI 43-101 assessment had about 50:50 indicated and inferred, our new Australian Maiden JORC 2012 has 100% inferred. The market does not care much for inferred as can be seen today. Some like me with a higher risk appetite will be interested purely for this reason.

Compare this to Alta Zinc which the FCR BOD showed on a presentation with Andrew Scott. They have a JORC from May 2017 which shows total tonnage of 3.3mt with 2.1mt indicated resource, 1.2m tonnes inferred resource. At first glance we can compare 3.3 to 16m tonnes in Toral. But Alta Zinc have 'some' indicated resources. In addition at the time the comparison was about £6-7m market cap for Alta Zinc compared to FCR's £2.5m. Alta Zinc is now at about £4.3. It's still significantly above FCR's Market Cap but also significantly below what it was.

One speculation point is therefore how much of our 16.1mt inferred resources can we get into the indicated category (note we had roughly 4m tonnes under the NI 43-101 based on 8.1m tonnes total), and how quickly can we do it?

Another speculation point is how much more resource is there at Toral given we have data on part of the asset only - there is more to investigate along strike, down dip, and infill. My guess based on strike length remaining, and the fact that Toral is in a former mining area - 'close ology' etc. is we might be looking at 25m+ tonnes with more metal in the ground - which the market will value at peanuts until we do the further studies which will be required to convince the market. My preference would be to park further study (requiring money) of the asset along strike etc. - as more tonnage will not convince the market unless it's in the right category.

If our indicated resources is higher than Alta Zinc's Jorc 2012 indicated resources will the market respond? On the balance of probabilities you would think so.

Note - under JORC 2012 - the chance of becoming an economic mine is - from memory

Inferred - 10%
Indicated - 50%
Measured 90%

Best you check those last stats. In addition the chance of anything becoming a mine is very low. I have seen stats ranging from 1 in a 1000, to 1 in a 100. Massive difference between those two figures. And then there is the question of what will the commodity price for Zinc, Lead and Silver be in the future.

IMO FCR has no option but to progress through the stages to convince the market, but much m

When the cash is raised I would prefer it to be aligned to a share consolidation. I know some of you will hate that - but I would prefer a clean sweep right now - once and for all - through the company, and sorting out all the crud - 3bn shares and rising is unsustainable IMO. JSE listing is not worth the money. However, shareholders in Aus outnumber shareholders in UK, so you would need to bare in mind what that means.

Clean slate and all that. Sometimes pruning the tree right back is best for the long term.

I would also like to see directors partaking in any cash raise. Sure they can get some share options in the future to get this company to where it belongs market cap wise - but if this really is a potential world class asset (I firmly believe it is - so far so good), then it's difficult to believe,for some shareholders, if the directors are not putting their money into this venture (and adventure) the same as the rest of us shareholders.

I think it's fair to say to the bod 'Do what us shareholders are doing - I.E investing in FCR' and we might just believe you when you tell us it's undervalued and world class. Show us some additional skin in the game so we believe you are different to all the previous BOD's on FCR.

Another option is to merge FCR with another company. Swap the potential value of the undervalued asset which is already a multiple of where it is today apparently (according to the BOD), for shares in a.n.other company which has the resources to progress the asset through the various studies. It is likely to be a CB company at a guess - so take your pick. Note the boards of some CB companies and FCR are almost identical. Some lateral thinking on this could get our Spanish assets moving along quite quickly. It would be interesting to see if it gets valued at what the current BOD projection is if this were to happen. The merged companies should have plenty of synergies that outweigh the current situation for some candidate companies I have been looking at.

Of course they could even raise some cash and merge. There are plenty of options.

Lesson learned - good news travels fast on AIM - the BOD cannot wait to give you the good news, and bad news has a habit of waiting around for far too long which can give you time to adjust. Wake up and smell the coffee so to speak.

These days, any predicted news more than +3 months over the due date then I am 'usually' inclined to think it's gone to rat***t.

1. How will FCR and others in its stable of companies raise money going forward? FCR does now have a single broker instead of two. I suspect it will need to try much harder to raise money - which is not a bad thing IMO. The BOD need to speak to shareholders soon.

2. Did any of those 65 Beaufort client companies receive money in placings that was questionable?

3. Did PI's get diluted more than 'normal'? I have already been diluted once since I bought in here - and others have been diluted several times.

4. Are any of the other brokers doing similar?

I expect we will be diluted several times more as we move into scoping, PFS, Feasibility study and BFS. That's normal for a resource exploration company - with no income coming in and expenses going out the door hoping to eventually to exploit value in their assets.

At least we have a maiden JORC and what looks like a very good asset we can build on. At the end of the day, it should be about the asset - and the management need to show how they can prove its worth.

What you should have asked is
1/ why have neither Laurence Read (Executive Director) and Myles Campion (Technical Director) while telling everyone they have a top quality resource, very undervalued, not actually bought a share between them even at these near record lows?

That would enable us to understand how they intend to sell this idea to someone else if they cant sell it to themselves.

The Canadian guideline NI 43-101 had inferred and indicated resources attached to it.
In terms of confidence levels

Inferred is the lowest
Indicated is the next best
Measured is better still.

Reserves can only be stacked up against indicated and measured resources.

iMO the recent JORC was massive news. The market did not react as many would have expected including me. The reason IMO is because we now have the Australian JORC compliant resource estimate that puts all our ore tonnage into the inferred category. Even though it's significantly 'bigger' than the NI 43-101 and even though it now has a silver credit to its name - the point is the market does not give much value to inferred resources.

For the market to apply an increasing multiple the resource needs to have further work performed on it that moves it from inferred to indicated and measured etc. These studies - scoping, pre-feasibility (PFS), feasibility, then Banking Feasibility Study (BFS) take time and money which is where Colin Bird presumably comes in - and potential other investors.

With hindsight had the resource kept an element of indicated resources (some 4m tonnes on the NI 43-101) then the market might have reacted differently.

Comparing FCR's tonnage with other companies tonnage is a useful comparison as it shows what might be, but we always need to be aware of the fact that resource categories, tonnage and grade (and grade cutoff) are a key determining factor. The rest - location, political environment etc are also very important but you need the asset first!

We now need to BOD to help us understand how they will move us along the resource curve to get us moving to indicated and measured categories. Without this the remaining potential along strike (which is significant after all ) will remain a nice to have but also have zero value attached to it.

If the steps are explained properly, and the funding is slotted into place, then this 'world class asset' might just have legs to get us to the point where it is sold on for a decent chunk of cash. I would like to see FCR mine it, but realistically a share in the asset is the best we will get - though that would be a company changer for FCR in itself and would reduce the risk. Given the share price is rock bottom and has been ever since the moonlight project was kicked into touch, I believe there is large upside, but the BOD need to show us the way first before investors improve sentiment.

Ferrum Crescent Limited tells Proactive they've now completed a program of six holes at the Toral project in Spain - all of them returning visually identified lead-zinc intersections.

Results as good as hoped
"Every hole gave us visual confirmation on lead-zinc intersection and it doesnt really get any better than that,"

"We will use that and the historical drilling results to see whats going on at Toral."

Plans to drill a further three holes have been shelved after new geologist Myles Campion assessed that it has enough information already, with the next phase of the exploration possibly to be to assay some of the historic core.

Historical drilling
"There has been a large amount of historical drilling conducted at Toral which returned significant lead-zinc intersections, and we are now enhancing our understanding of the structure and definition of the deposit in a cost-effective manner.

"While the assays from the latest drill campaign are submitted and returned over the next six weeks, the company has sufficient information in the meantime to progress with designing the next stages of further exploration at Toral and to examine economic comparators for a potential future lead-zinc mining operation.

"A key focus for our geological team is to assess the possibility of defining overlapping planes of lead-zinc mineralisation concentrated within the project area. I look forward to providing further updates on our progress in due course."

Visble intercepts
House broker Beaufort Securities noted that Toral currently has a combined (indicated and inferred) resource of 8.7Mt (million tonnes) with a weighted average grade of 10.7% (lead and zinc).

Intercepts of visible mineralisation from all six drill holes within 200 metres from surface suggest the group's hypothesis of known mineralisation at depth linked to shallow mineralised features is correct.

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